“When did he last move?”
The room did not get louder. It got too quiet. Even the stove seemed to hold its breath while I stood with my hand on the edge of the table, trying to decide which lie would sound most believable.
“This morning,” I said.
Luke’s fingers tightened around the cup until his knuckles went pale. He did not bark at me. He did not blame me for walking too far or sleeping on shed boards or waiting until hunger had made the truth plain on my face. That almost broke me worse than anger would have.
A bruised peach rolled out of the crate and hit the floor between us. It split against the worn boards, gold flesh opening under its torn skin, and for one strange second both of us looked at it instead of looking at my belly.
Luke pushed back from the table so fast the chair legs scraped a raw line through the silence.
Then he stopped.
His whole body seemed to fold inward, not from weakness, but from the weight of understanding what he had almost sent back down the road the night before. His eyes moved to the narrow bed, then to the coat I had folded at its foot, then to the two quarters sitting alone on the table where I had emptied my pocket.
“I should’ve opened the door sooner,” he said.
I wanted to tell him there was still time. I wanted to believe it.
But then he reached for his hat, looked toward the back door, and said there was one more thing he needed before sunrise was gone…
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